Advance lessons?

[seasurfer]

Since Jpod101 is modeled after cpod, they have 6 levels in their course. However, Jpod101 has only 2 levels. Has Jpod101 ever consider advance level?

[Rens]

I would like to see them come also, or more intermidiate lessons. Often the intermediate lessons are skipped for a week for something else while there are so many beginner lessons. I am considering a subscription for basic or premium, but at the moment there are just not enough intermediate / advanced lessons.

It's because I like the intermediate lessons there are now a lot I'm saying this. Keep up the good work!

[seasurfer]

Chinesepod is so much more developed than jpod101, I really hope jpod101 can be as developed as them. By this time, Cpod has almost everything for a person to acquire chinese language ability. On the other hand, jpod101 seems to be behind on this.

My proposal is:
1. Keep up on the beginner level, you all really did a good job.

2. Produce more intermediate level for those who are at that level.

3. Create a bridge betwen beginner and intermediate level, so that a user may know how to go to the next level without much difficulty.

4. Setup advance level for those who want to further refine their japanese.

5. If advance level is setup, create a bridge between intermediate and advance level too. So that the transition wouldn't be so difficult.

6. Setup native level Japanese, everything should be written in Japanese. Chinesepod has such a level, where everything is written in Chinese. At this native level, they bring up current issues which is actually a good idea, where people can know what happened in China. Jpod101 can do the same thing too, bring up current issue in Japan, so that people living outside of Japan like me can know what is going on in Japan. May be, Jpod101 can also consider bring up foreign issues to Japan, attracting local Japanese to this site as well?

7. I truly believe there are a large group of people who want to learn Japanese because of the anime and manga culture. This group of people form one of the largest group of people who want to learn Japanese. I strongly suggest Jpod101 consider setting up an anime and manga category to teach people how to read and listen to Japanese in the anime and manga. This is a phenomenon not found in the Chinese language. A lot of people actually wish to read and listen to the original version rather than just depend on subtitles. Therefore, I believe there is a market for this, on the top of that, there is not much resources on this, so Jpod101 can be a pioneer in this area. 頑張って下さい。

On the other hand, I believe quite a number of people probably asked question like this:
How many beginner lessons should we do in order to proceed to the next level? In my opinion, I think Jpod101 can try to setup a guideline on this issue, so that Japanese learners have a rough idea of how to plan their Japanese course by using this program. At least when we go to a Japanese class, there will be a structured guildline that leads us to the next level, but I don't find it here, so that is the different. This is something Jpod101 can work on.

Ha...I still has a lot of crazy ideas...??? sometime people think that my ideas are crazy.... ...I wonder if Jpod101 people like Peter will read my ideas or not??? I wouldn't mind to offer help to Jpod101 if they need??? This is just one of the greatest site I known, and so much can be done to bring it to a higher level.

[Bueller_007]

1) Ken Carroll's staff lives and works in Shanghai. Jpod's staff lives and works in Tokyo. There's a HUGE difference in workers' living expenses and the wages you have to pay to keep good people. But Jpod's prices are still lower than ChinesePod's.

2) The quality of the lessons is beyond compare. Cpod's "newbie" lessons, when I last listened to them a few months ago anyway, were TERRIBLE. Ken does a lot of the talking himself, despite the fact that he has a horrible, horrible accent. Even I could pick up how bad his accent is, and I don't speak a word of Chinese.

I still don't speak a word of Chinese, because their lessons were so bad that I quit.

3) Jpod does need some kind of advanced level lessons, I agree. But as I have said elsewhere, by the time you get to "advanced" level Japanese, you're usually dealing with obscure, almost-useless grammatical structures and expressions that are only very rarely used in written Japanese. Is it really useful to do an audio podcast about written Japanese?

Plus, the number of users for whom these lessons would be beneficial is also quite small. AFAICT, among present listeners, they would benefit only me, Brody, Jason, Airth and (maybe?) Mikuji as well. Other listeners simply aren't at the level to handle these lessons yet. The staff's time & funds are not unlimited, so more time & money channelled into advanced lessons means less time & money available for beginner's lessons, which is the level that most listeners are at.

More useful than an "advanced" level itself, would be *business* lessons. Upper-level intermediate/advanced lessons directed into business situations.

4) A regular university course has the option of failing students who don't progress. That's how they can get away with saying, "by the time you finish this level, you will be able to do this, and this, and this".

jPod can't *fail* its listeners. So there's no possible way that jPod can say "after this many lessons, you can move on to the next level." It's almost 100% dependent on the listener. Some people are diligent, read the PDFs and make an effort to remember all of the new grammar points, vocab, kanji, etc. Other people listen to the lessons on the train, and may never even look at the website. Some people are simply gifted at learning languages, and others are not.

jPod provides the opportunity and the material for you to learn. What the listener does with it is up to them.

The best way is to listen to all of the lessons (at your own level and above) and decide for yourself when you are ready to move up.

[seasurfer]

2) The quality of the lessons is beyond compare. Cpod's "newbie" lessons, when I last listened to them a few months ago anyway, were TERRIBLE. Ken does a lot of the talking himself, despite the fact that he has a horrible, horrible accent. Even I could pick up how bad his accent is, and I don't speak a word of Chinese.

I still don't speak a word of Chinese, because their lessons were so bad that I quit.

I do not think that their lessons where that terrible. No doubt that Ken has an accent, but his pronouciation were correct. The very fact about chinese is that a lot of foreigner tend to think that Beijing accent is the standard, but within the chinese community not everyone think that way, and sometime, people tend to dislike beijing accent, especially oversea chinese and people from taiwan, where their accent differ from that of beijing. Having an accent does not make him terrible, he is not a native anyway. Peter has an accent too, but his Japanese is consider very good as a non-native.

Regarding only a small number of users will benefit from advance lessons, I couldnt agree with that. Because there is no such lessons in the first place, so those people that might actually want it may not be here. We should not use the current populace to estimate the need. On the other hand, if beginners like me continue to listen everyday, one day we will reach this level too, and then we might need it.

May be Jpod people can ask people from Cpod about how their advance level turn out and then decide whether to have one or not. From what I see, Cpod seems to be doing very good.

I agree with you about the bussiness lesson, I think this is a very good idea. However, I really wish jpod can has some anime lessons. Just out of curiosity, is Jpod101 in the red or black now?

[Bueller_007]

Peter has an accent too, but his Japanese is consider very good as a non-native.

I agree. Pronunciation-wise, Peter's Japanese is much better than Ken's Chinese. It's no fault of Ken's; it's probably largely due to fact that Japanese pronunciation is quite easy, and Chinese pronunciation is quite difficult.

I realize that Chinese has a large number of dialects, and it's really not much different from Japanese in this respect. Aomori dialect and Kagoshima dialect are completely unintelligible to the average Japanese, and the average Osakan *hates* Tokyo dialect. But I don't think that Ken's "accent" can be attributed to dialectical differences. And I don't think it's excusable on these grounds. He sounds like he has a mouth full of marbles and peanut butter. If he hasn't already, he should remove himself from the Chinese portion of the lessons, as Peter has.

Regarding only a small number of users will benefit from advance lessons, I couldnt agree with that.

The market for advanced lessons is, of course, *much* smaller because EVERYONE starts at the beginning level, but only a few progress to the advanced level. This holds true for all subjects. There are more beginning Physics learners than there are intermediate learners than there are advanced learners. An additional weekly advanced lesson likely means one less beginner's lesson, which means less content going to the majority of listeners & subscribers.

And as I said above, "advanced" Japanese may not be practical for an audio podcast, as it's almost exclusively rare, formal, written Japanese that is not used when speaking.


I'm just a listener, not a representative of Jpod, so I can't answer your question about income.

[Rens]

Plus, the number of users for whom these lessons would be beneficial is also quite small. AFAICT, among present listeners, they would benefit only me, Brody, Jason, Airth and (maybe?) Mikuji as well. Other listeners simply aren't at the level to handle these lessons yet.

How can you say who is ready for advanced lessons and who is not? I believe there are many listereners who are not activly part of the community with posting on the forums and posting comments, but like me keeping an eye on the website for when new Intermediate lessons are out and what the developments are on possible advanced / business levels. I, myself find the Intermediate lessons quite easy, but they are a lot of fun (getting hooked on them by the story) and occasionally give some new interesting phrases or structures. I believe that there are quite a lot listeners at higher level than beginner and also when you start podcasting more high-level content, the number of people listening to them would increase also, because it will attract a new type of students to the site.

The market for advanced lessons is, of course, *much* smaller because EVERYONE starts at the beginning level, but only a few progress to the advanced level. This holds true for all subjects.

This is not true, not everyone starts at the beginners level at JapanesePod 101, I believe there are many people also who found out about this site and already being at Intermediate / Advanced level. Maybe JapanesePod101 should do a small poll or research about how many listeners are actually interested in non-beginners lessons.

You've got some very nice idea's there seasurfer, I hope they read them!

[Bueller_007]

The majority of the learners in EVERY subject are beginners. Sorry, that's just the way that things work.

[seasurfer]

The majority of the learners in EVERY subject are beginners. Sorry, that's just the way that things work.

You are right in this sense. However, it does not mean that the number of people who want advance lessons are insignificant.

[seasurfer]

I agree. Pronunciation-wise, Peter's Japanese is much better than Ken's Chinese. It's no fault of Ken's; it's probably largely due to fact that Japanese pronunciation is quite easy, and Chinese pronunciation is quite difficult.

I realize that Chinese has a large number of dialects, and it's really not much different from Japanese in this respect. Aomori dialect and Kagoshima dialect are completely unintelligible to the average Japanese, and the average Osakan *hates* Tokyo dialect. But I don't think that Ken's "accent" can be attributed to dialectical differences. And I don't think it's excusable on these grounds. He sounds like he has a mouth full of marbles and peanut butter. If he hasn't already, he should remove himself from the Chinese portion of the lessons, as Peter has.

Peter's Japanese is much better than Ken's Chinese? Ken's Chinese is not that bad, you do not need to be so mean. I think they are just about the same. Chinese is one of my native language, the other being English. From my point of view, Ken's Chinese is considered good as a non native, just as Peter's Japanese is considered good as a non native.

Ken's accent doesnt disqualify him to teach Chinese there. His pronouciation is correct after all. It is same here too, Peter do not need to remove himself from the lessons, I wish Peter can come back and speak Japanese, it is nice to hear non-native speaking Japanese as well.

[Bueller_007]

The majority of the learners in EVERY subject are beginners. Sorry, that's just the way that things work.

You are right in this sense. However, it does not mean that the number of people who want advance lessons are insignificant.

The actual number of advanced learners, but compared with the number of beginning learners, they are pretty insignificant, though.

Given unlimited funds & time, it would be easy to create everything that you've asked for. I'm not saying that they are bad ideas. I'm just saying that advanced lessons may not be prudent for the staff or practical for the listeners.

[Airth]

I would certainly like to see more advanced material. As things stand I would peg the intermediate lessons at the lower end of the difficulty range. The audio blog was a step in the right direction, but is rather limited in scope.

For me, advanced doesn't mean obscure grammar points, I think instead of communication strategies, control of nuance, and interaction skills. In other words, developing profiency. All of which is pretty difficult to get across through a podcast. Still, as has been mentioned, there is a wealth of material waiting to be explored; business communication and anime/manga to name but two.

The problem, as Bueller rightly points out, is that the target audience must be extremely limited. Would it really be commercially viable to pursue advanced lessons for JPod101? All I can say is that they are unable to separate me from my money with the current level of content available in the Learning Center; the question is how many other people feel the same way?

At the moment, I simply watch TV; pick up a book; listen to one of countless Japanese podcasts available; or start a conversation with one of the many Japanese people I meet every day. You could argue I don't really need JPod to provide me with lessons. But it can get kind of lonely trying to master the language on my own. Working towards fluency is a long, hard road and an online service has the chance to offer tangible support.

[Jason]

I'd love to see more advanced material, too. Maybe once today's beginners move more into intermediate, that might could be possible. But at this point I don't think it's either feasible or practical. In the meantime, this is a good place to discuss more advanced subject matter amongst ourselves.

[Bueller_007]

I'm not sure why everyone thinks the audio blog is so difficult... I find the language she uses about the same as the int. lessons, and personally, I think she herself is much easier to understand than Chigusa.

Chigusa is a bullet.

[Airth]

Actually you're right. The audio blog is by no stretch of the imagination difficult; so far I've listened to each one once and not bothered to read the transcript.

Talking about 'advanced' Japanese is perhaps missing the point; I'm interested in natural Japanese. I'd like to see something along the lines of the Suntory Saturday Waiting Bar Avanti http://reco.jfn.co.jp/podcasts/tokyo/avanti/ where people discuss a variety of topics in a very natural everyday style. Now, I can follow these pretty well, but I'm interested in the rhythm and the flow of the conversation. Vocabulary and grammar are easy to learn compared to gaining conversational skills as demonstrated in the Suntory podcasts. Again though, I'm not quite sure how this could be incorporated into what is already on offer here.

At this stage I am more than capable of following my own study plan. The thing I miss is the interaction with other learners at the same stage I find myself at today. Having other people to bounce the language around with can help to maintain that essential bit of motivation necessary to reach that imaginary summit.